Little Women

After reading "Little Women: How consumer culture is forcing girls to grow up too fast" I see some things, as a kid, I was exposed to but then again a lot of things I wasn't shown. As a kid I played with the Bratz dolls and Barbie but I never thought of what they were wearing would be something I would ever wear. I just saw them as something to play with. Also with the Disney movies I just enjoyed the songs and the characters in the movies. I wasn't paying so much attention to what the girls were wearing. I think my mindset of not inspiring to wear the outfits they did has kept me level headed. As the article had said many young girls see what the princess and dolls are wearing and they want to wear it to. As a kid I wasn't exposed to the media very much because we did not have cable. My parents didn't like the shows that were on TV and only allowed my sister and I to watch shows they approved of, like Arthur. Today, every one of all ages is more exposed to suggestive images because of the media. Through commercials of Victoria Secret or ads in magazines that you can't even tell what the product is. I think that this has affected many girls self esteem issues including myself. We constantly see how a woman should look in our society but we know that it is not possible to look that way no matter how hard we try. Some girls try so hard to look a certain way but are then just judged and criticized because they dress provocatively and inappropriately for their age. In the article when they said stores are now making thongs for girls 7 to 10 years old I was shocked. That is too young of an age for a girl to be wearing a thong, I don't even think at that age I knew what a thong was. Lastly, being in an all girl catholic school I have been taught a lot on this topic. We learn in class how the media just photo shops every photo so the woman in the picture can look there best and most appealing to the viewers. We learn to be confident women just the way we are and not to change ourselves because that is the way media or boys want us to look.